Greenhouse Crops, Cheap Clips, Secateurs

Well, the greenhouses are producing incredibly in this sunny weather. That leads me to needing more tomato vine clips and finally a self-indulgent new toy… er tool.

Large Chilli Plant Long Slim Cayenne

Most of the time in the greenhouses now is spent watering and feeding, harvesting and side-shooting the tomatoes. The sweet peppers are doing better than usual but the Long Slim Cayenne chilli pepper plants are huge. They’re bumping the top of the greenhouse (from the bench) and heavy with fruits.

We don’t like super-hot chillis, so generally I grow 2 plants of a mild (for chillis) variety. One and a backup, as one would be sufficient for our needs. This year I think half a plant would be more than we want.

I’ve stopped most of the tomatoes so they’ll concentrate on fruits rather than vegetative growth. In a normal year, that would be after 6 or 7 trusses but this year it’s 8. With luck, they’ll all swell and ripen. Knowing my luck, we’ll have snow in September but if you don’t try…

Cucumbers – oops, I did it again!

Cucumbers – Marketmore at the top, Carmen below

My biggest fault is over-growing, and I’ve done it again. 2 Marketmore, 2 Mini-Munch and 1 Carmen. To be honest, one Mini-Munch would have provided for all our needs. I can’t give them away as fast as they arrive. The quality is good, as well – which is nice.

Tomato Vine Clips

Tomato Vine Clips – Quality Polish made on the left.

To support my cordon tomatoes and cucumbers I drop a string down and anchor it under the rootball when planting. As the plant grows, the string is coiled around the stem to hold the plant. The problem with this is that it is easy to damage the stem. Sometimes a careless moment snaps the growing stem, which is not what you want at all.

Marketmore Cucumber – supported using tomato vine clips around the stem

The answer I discovered some years back were tomato vine clips. These clip onto the string and hold the stem. The clips are pretty cheap but after a couple of years the plastic becomes brittle and breaks.

So I needed more clips. I found some on Shein that looked about the same as the last lot and the price was an incredible £1.53 for 200. Result! Except that they were rubbish. Smaller, half the height and lacking the lugs to clip onto the string. Returning them just wasn’t worth the hassle.

So onto Ebay where I found some that looked right. Good comments – if you can believe them. Surprisingly, made in Poland not China. They’re thicker, work better and well worth the £7.50 I paid for 200. Cheap is often not the best value.

Super Pruning Shears

I picked up a Worx electric pruning shears from Amazon. The first didn’t work, just made a clicking noise, so I swapped it. I was in two minds about swapping it or just getting my money back, but I’m glad I did.

They’ll cope with wood up to 25mm thick and they’re effortless. Press the trigger, snip snap and the wood is cut. OK, I could do the same with my loppers, but these things are lightning fast, and I think I can allow myself the odd indulgence. We have a lot of trees and pruning here.

One word of warning. If you get your finger in the way, make sure you have some ice and a bag to place the finger in as you drive to the hospital! The time to worry is, like with chainsaws, when you become blasé about them.